In the dairy, ranching, and farming industry, the use of fences, gates and free stall barns to house and maintain animals such as dairy cattle and horses is well known in the art. Particularly, when properly designed, fences, pens, and free stall barns provide a convenient method of managing dairy cattle by providing a comfortable living and feeding environment that allows the cattle to move freely within the confined area. Such barn styles are also designed to shade and protect animals from inclement weather conditions. In a typical design, the barn includes several free stall partitions that are adjacently arranged to maximize space capacity and to provide a plurality of resting areas that are sized to accommodate individual cattle. Additionally, in other examples such as use in a livestock pen area, such as a horse pasture, the enclosure may include a boundary fence or similar enclosure with one or more gates to enable feeding and pasturing of the horses. As such, key considerations taken into account when implementing such designs are the initial and on-going maintenance costs, ease of installation, as well as adequate spacing and sizing of the stalls, fencing and/or gates. Moreover, an important consideration is that of being able to adapt the fencing design to the contour of the land and surrounding structures which may be uneven, unaligned, or not of uniform size and spacing.
Conventionally, most live stock enclosures, stalls, fencing and/or gates are generally composed of stainless steel or wooden materials that rust, corrode, and mold easily. This in turn leads to decreased wear life and maintenance costs associated with having to continuously replace the enclosures. Additionally, with most free stall systems, the stalls are typically attached to the support frames of the barn structures, thereby making it difficult to adjust the individual stall sizes and requiring increased installation times and costs. To address such concerns, other conventional systems have employed the use of prefabricated free stall assemblies. Drawbacks to such designs, however, include decreased wear life and increased maintenance costs associated with the use of materials that are easily corroded and rusted due to the barn environment with livestock.
Additionally, most fences and free stall systems are designed with the construction materials attached to each other and to surrounding structures using rigid connectors that may be pre-manufactured having square corners, half-corners, or possibly only a small number of possibilities for making connections. To address such constraints, fences, gates and structures that are used to contain livestock are limited in their versatility and adaptability, forcing a design that is limited and may not properly follow the contour of the land or existing structures. Drawbacks to such designs include gaps that may occur in attempting to follow the contour of the land and irregularities in structures, or the need for installing excessive fencing and stall materials to accommodate these contours and irregularities. Additionally, for the craftsman of these fencing, gate and stall materials, there is a need to carry an assortment of connectors resulting in higher inventory carrying cost.
Therefore, there still exists a need in the art for a versatile and cost effective, light weight, fence, gate and/or free stall design that has an increased wear life that is easy to install, resistant to corrosion and rust, and that may have the option to swivel to any angle in order to accommodate the attachment of fencing, gate and stall materials to conform to the contour of the land and the irregularities and non-uniformity farm and ranch structures